we're after us

we’re after us  

there is a window

the outside world is now all but occluded

branches of a tree   a small triangle of sky

a patch of darkness

 

we are inside

there is a construction of sunlight

fitted to the walls   laid across the floor

polygonal pieces in the puzzle

there is the mathematics of shadow

cornered   an algorithm of photons

 

the room is empty

there is no furniture

there are no curtains

there is nowhere to hide

there is   finally   no narrative

we can suppose a door

a way in   a way out  

 

there is a witness   spectators

those who see the geometry

of moment   of time   of light

of borders crossed   of life shelled

the shape of things    the symmetry

things that are lost   things that are held

Hopper  Sun in an Empty Room

siódma fala

 

siódma fala 

 

this is where she lives

this is her house

this cycle of a song and dance

see how she sways and swirls

whirls whorled in a world aroused

around and around the flow the waves

count them   count the ways

cascade   cataract   maelstrom   drought

the confluence of water echoed by the wind

tornadoes stretched to derechos    the arabesque

flamenco and a tango she can do the fandango   

solo ostinato      there’s no control then there is   

the calm   the lull   the lullaby   the whisper and the shout

the voice giving out   giving way    to spiccato

her body her music is prey to the bow

the draw   the back arching   the release

an arrow in flight a performance a show

tracing a cardioid path

such height   then the descent

straight to the heart   segue

a sequence of love   happiness   betrayal   hate

 

the duende   oh the duende

  

read about Duende

listen to Manuel de Falla 'Jota'

family album

family album  

 and a here with a granddad unknown unknowable

indefinite epithets unilluminated a stern expression

a serious face of his age deftly inscrutable

a granny too indistinct crossing a distance

yet focused a deadpan gaze into a stillborn life

that stares back like a knife

then a father young almost handsome smug with potential

the future a wild animal to be captured and caged   beside

a mother inside her beauty peering out with uncertain

apology in a smile that never quite reaches her eyes

and an Imago windswept with the then and the now

caught in the gusts of a life stiffening and cracking

already brittle with rust

shoplifting

 shoplifting 

 

we’ve all given it a go

the gang identity the group skin

draped in insolence and arrogance

all that belonging that longing to be in

the chorus the song and dance of adolescence

that becomes a one-man show

 

how the mind becomes body

the somatic awareness of self

that sudden sweaty existential voice

the dare the dread that life upon the shelf

to take to pocket to make that choice

to move to the music   the choreography …

 

and breathless the song ending

and the buzzing adrenal silence

that some can never switch off 

the trinket in the hand that defiance

that tells how a life will be lived

the visceral precipitous bending

 

young Imago’s hand hovers …

Love was

Love was 

 

Love was a party

two pumped up balloons

set free

bumping on the ground

clumsy with gravity

dead air

left to deflate

 

Love was a meal

haute cuisine

portions like leftovers

pushed around the plate

all the ingredients you learned to hate

the dishes

left stacked in the sink

 

Love was a dream

an IKEA bed

unmade   rough wood

sheets rucked and stained

with sweat and blood

an atlas

left unwashed unchanged

 

Love was and is a door   unhinged  

lazarus (post-mortem)

 

Lazarus (post-mortem) 

 

Imago remembers her mother

caresses the skin of memories feels its tightness

the hair rising at the nape of her neck

yet there are folds and creases in the story

where the narrative is hidden or erased

those movements the mathematics

the grammatical elisions of cause and effect

which have been wrapped in the warp and weft

of time trapped like bubbles in the blood bending

thought the iron bar of identity reshaping

the curve squaring the circle the slice of pie   

the integer the Fraction the transcendental I

never escaping

halfway house

halfway house (Buckingham Place)  

 

on a white plate

half a slice of white bread fried

to a crispy saturated brown

half a tomato charred with a

cold heart   then the pot luck

of a gnarled finger of a chipolata or

a fried egg the pale washed out yolk or

(best of all) a rasher of streaky

wash it down

a cup of too milky tea

sugar in a chipped bowl a plastic spoon

 

upstairs

the room shared the sheets the towels

the chaffing the erasing of the soul

the sense of being burgled  

someone stealing in the ghost in the machine     

woken early morning

the farting and the snoring

breathing out breathing in

a freedom wreathed in contamination

the thickening of the skin

halfway there halfway where the blank slate

the rubbing out of the graffiti

the indelible the inedible the leftovers

the rind upon a white plate